Can/should/do men "do" feminism? This is the basic question
addressed in the collected essays in Men Doing Feminism, and the
quick answer is yes. It is like asking if men can, should, or do teach
novels by women in a literature class and present students with feminist
literary perspectives, and the obvious answer is yes. But like
contemplating the title itself, which several of the contributors do,
the interpretations are more varied and more complex than anyone's first
response. And no, the collective "we" did not get these issues
settled and done with nearly three decades ago.

What these essays particularly confront is the problem of definition,
and by extension, the problem of all categorization. What is meant by
"men" is opened to question, both in theory and in reality, as
is made abundantly clear in Henry S. Rubin's essay "Reading Like a
(Transsexual) Man" and C. Jacob Hale's "Tracing a Ghostly
Memory in My Throat: Reflections of an Ftm [Female toward male] Feminist
Voice and Agency." Even distinguishing between biology and social
construction of gender does not adequately cover the extent of the
difficulty of defining "man" or "woman."
"Doing" becomes more ambiguous than "accomplishing";
when men publish "feminist criticism," what is the degree of
their attachment/detachment? Can men "be" feminists, or merely
"act" or self-define as pro-feminist? (Or should that be
"profeminist," or "progressive male standpoint," as
two of the essayists use?) And as for the word "feminism," or
the currently more frequent use of the plural "feminisms," one
person's own definitions (and degrees of engagement) change with
startling frequency, so trying to summarize everyone's definitions is a
difficult task. As the writers confront such on-going problematic
issues, they remind us that it is worthwhile -- and imperative -- to do
so, even though the answers are complex and far from being agreed upon.

The essays do all agree that men need to be more aware of
contemporary feminist issues and to make changes not only in their own
lives but to work to change other men's actions and to reconceptualize
the social mythologies of what it means to be a "man ."

The anthology is divided into two sections: "Feminist Theory from
Men's Lives," and "Feminist Theory in Men's
Lives." The essays are presented as eighteen "Chapters,"
perhaps to convey a sense of the progressive development of these two
topics. Four of the essays are written by women, who provide commentary
on moving men toward more egalitarian action and developing male
feminist subjectivities; all four are supportive of such moves for the
sakes of both women and men. In a "Foreword," Sandra Bartky
points out that including the essays by women gives "the collection
as a whole a dialogic quality" and also shows that "there is
important, even compelling, work that women can do in theorizing the
increasing participation by men in feminist change" (xiv). The
fourteen male authors include those who self-identify as heterosexual,
homosexual, or transsexual, white or black. All contributors except one
are identified as currently teaching in American universities (and one
in Canada). Eleven teach in Philosophy departments, and one of the
interests in the reading is observing stylistic differences between
writing in that discipline compared with, say, literary criticism. (The
philosophers here tend to organize essays as though developing their
thought processes in considerable logical detail, complete with
introductions that summarize the material at length and conclusions that
re-summarize.) Many of the eighteen essays are made more lively and
convincing by inclusion of autobiographical experiences.

Editor Tom Digby, who teaches philosophy and feminist theory, states
in his "Introduction" that "I still consider feminism to
be the most important defining characteristic of my philosophical and
personal life" (5) after tracing various personal experiences that
contributed to his understanding that "sexism damages men
themselves" (5) as well as women and society as a whole. Several
other writers also address the origins of their feminist development; my
favorite is Thomas E. Wartenberg's comment in "Teaching Women
Philosophy (as a Feminist Man)": "through the influence of a
number of my friends and colleagues, I had been reading feminist
literature of various sorts since the early 1970s. (I think that the
first feminist text of any significance that I read was Doris Lessing's The
Golden Notebook.) I thought that feminism had important things to
tell all of us, both in personal and intellectual terms" (132).

The reading of feminist literature by anyone always strikes me as
hopeful, to paraphrase Sandra Bartky's words in her
"Foreward." She concludes her comments on this collection of
essays by writers struggling toward a more just social order by saying:
"Men Doing Feminism gives me hope" (xiv).